Pastor’s six-year-old daughter dies in bizarre badminton accident while on vacation

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A family from New Jersey was struck by a tragic accident while on vacation: their six-year-old daughter died in a bizarre badminton accident.

Lucy Morgan died on Wednesday, four days after a badminton racket broke and a piece of the frame pierced her skull.

The incident occurred while the family was on vacation in Maine, according to the New York Post.

According to her father, Pastor Jesse Morgan, the family enjoyed their final day at a rented vacation home in Limerick, Maine.

“We were eating a quick lunch by the lake and the kids decided to try badminton in the front yard. Bethany and I were relaxing in the back when we heard screaming,” Morgan wrote in a blog post titled “Disaster Strikes.”

He said a badminton racket broke in a “freak accident” during a “downward swing”, meaning “a sharp piece penetrated Lucy’s skull while she was sitting on the sidelines, causing a catastrophic injury”.

The bat’s aluminum shaft broke away from the handle, striking the girl and piercing her skull, investigators said.

When emergency responders arrived to treat her, Lucy was breathing but unresponsive. She was flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital in Portland, Maine, for treatment, according to Maine police.

Doctors tried to treat Lucy – and even had to resuscitate her after her heart went into cardiac arrest – but warned her family that due to the severity of her injury and the resulting brain damage, her chance of recovery was “very slim,” Morgan wrote.

Lucy eventually died four days after the incident.

Morgan recalled the sadness he felt on the 350-mile drive back to his New Jersey home without his daughter.

“Every time I looked in the rearview mirror, I wished I could see Lucy munching on chicken nuggets after we stopped at Wendy’s and only ordered for 5,” he wrote.

The terrible accident has shocked everyone in Morgan’s family, including his young children, who he says “blame themselves and are taking it hard.”

Morgan’s ten-year-old son was holding the bat when the accident occurred. He is said to have asked his father “how we could ever be happy again,” according to the pastor’s blog.

“We just sat on the front steps crying for a while until I finally got the courage to open the door. We collapsed again and lay on the kitchen floor, crying as a family more than ever before,” he wrote.

Lucy’s funeral will be held on June 15 at Green Pond Bible Chapel in Rockaway, the church where Morgan pastors.